Volition
by Des Darling
Summary: More so than anything, he wanted to dance with her as he had seen her dance with another in her dreams.


_**Volition**_

Darkness and moonlight and the silence of stars spilled into the cavernous ballroom occupied by one. Scanty light slid across the floors in faint waves, lapping the walls and the shadows and the ankles of Hades with balmy tongues that soothed the pain of old scars, the threat of those impending. They whispered against the unblemished crystal floors, the tapestries that had been pried off of the gaping windows, the ivory facade that clung to the devil. But the emptiness of the hall and the void in his heart offered no words in return; one held its breath in anticipation, while the other conceded to being lost in a drunken haze. With that realized, he gladly raised his glass in a toast to the lavish void. The vampire drained his crystal victim of its blood, leaving behind only obstinate droplets of red that clung to the smooth glass.

Unoccupied was the doorframe with the terrace doors pulled back to unveil the endless night. He gladly assumed his rightful place at the edge, leaning casually against the woodwork with a shoulder left vulnerable to the outside and the other left to be coddled by calm of contained night. Unusually so, the intemperate world was not violently mercurial. Ravenous winds did not tear at his hair and his clothing only to suddenly retreat into their caves as if entirely nonexistent. Dust did not swirl around in flurries that struck his respiratory tract maliciously, cramming dryness down his throat until he was choking on the desert. Night did not demand color from the world it presided over, leeching pigment from his skin until he was as fair as rare winter's snow.

Only the quiet remained. The planet Nemesis had fallen into slumber for the first time in an eternity. And he would not be the one to wake it with his kiss.

No, his lips were reserved for the monarch who had shattered her chrysalis, who had broken into the world in a show of power and awe. His virgin kiss was saved for her so that he could brand cruelty into her skin, defile her virtue with his tongue, mark her as his forever and always. And his hands...they thirsted to take her diaphanous wings and rip them from her scapula so that she could never hope to fly again and so that the vacancy would remind her of humanity's vulnerability to loss. His body wanted to break her, and break her he would.

Filaments of darkness tugged at the richness of his cape, grasped for his hands, caressed his cheeks in hopes of luring him into the Nemesian nocturne. Their manipulation only drove him further away from their ministrations, as he, the spoiled, conceited devil was not one to sway. The world catered to his whims, not he to the world's.

With that thought, he turned sharply away from the somnolence of the planet's crust, violet cape swirling behind him in a maelstrom of unfettered power and defiance. The Prince gone, the terrace doors were free to return to their places, which they eagerly reclaimed. Light as the very wings he desired to destroy, the tapestries fluttered back into place, swallowing all of the dimness and bathing the world in black.

There was nothing to look at in the inexorable void surrounding him on all sides. His surroundings were indistinguishable from the world trapped in the back of his eyelids. And so, he siphoned his senses to his ears, to his skin, to his tongue. The wine he took another sip of suddenly was so bold in flavor, as was the absence of noise in its interminableness. But as soon as he took a single step forward, the latter was shattered by the loud click of his shoe's hollow heel against the frozen sea. In all directions, the noise rang out, reverberating, assaulting his heightened aural sense.

It was accompanied by yet another sound to dispel the silence.

On its hinges, the door squealed as it was forced open. Anxious, the tapestries retreated from the windows. Alert, the room devoured all sound.

Slowly, slowly, his lazy eyes, half-lidded, opened. Pupils dilated as a body warm with crimson blood stole into the room without so much as a sound other than the quivers of her tumultuous heart. Though encased in a cage of bone and swathed in smooth skin, he could practically feel the organ beating in his bloodied hands. And he could already taste her essence, rich and infinite, bathing his tongue. It made his wine seem so unappealing, so repulsive.

Thoughtlessly, he tossed the glass into the black sea and didn't cringe when it made contact with the floor, fragmenting into thousands of crystalline shards with a loud cry. Its unconsumed blood trickled from its brokenness as a bubbling, macabre stream in a meadow.

Untimely death brought the count to two: two entities existed in the void of the ballroom. He dragged his tongue across his lips, wetting them in preparation for what was to come, as he heard the scuttle of footsteps against the crystal floors. Her defense, so pitiful and hapless, brought her into the arms of his ally. She had backed herself against the door that would never budge again until he had satiated his hunger.

And in his veins he felt her heart quake and her breath rage, her hands quiver and her lips tremble. _Oh how lovely_. His own lips curled into a wolfish grin. She expected him to be slow, to be deliberate…but not anymore.

Keen canines dripping with ruby blood mimicked the duality of the osiria rose in all their savage glories. The predator, the lanky wolf shrouded in his pelt of white, stalked the rabbit so unfortunate as to venture into his den. Each step, closer, closer, _closer_, treated him with her tempestuous pulse. He craved the tangible fear of hers that sank into his own vessels. It aroused him. It taunted him. It begged him.

_Now._

His restraint fractured, allowing voracity to force itself out of the resulting fissures. Unbridled, he struck with merciless finesse, with feral elegance, with vehemence. Claws aching with the desire to burrow into flesh trapped his prey against the door. Breath warm, breath wet, breath teeming with unfettered lust sought the milky skin of his capture. And she shuddered and whined, so vulnerable. So his.

He stifled her audible fear with his kiss.

The devil seized a fistful of her luxurious hairs when he had had his fill, haphazardly yanking her cranium down, baring the virgin flesh of her neck. His lips traversed the gentle cliff of her jawbone and worked their way down her neck to her pulse point. And when they finally arrived at that glorious spot, they wasted no time in marking her; he feasted on her supple skin, leaving behind the physical evidence of his dominance.

All the while, her gentle whimpers and groans echoed in the empty ballroom as the melody of her futility. And her equally as gentle hands found the sides of his head. Nails rooted themselves in his white mane, threatening to pierce through his scalp, as his kiss traced the gentle curve of her shoulder.

But when his hands began to push away the ivory sleeves clinging to her shoulders, he retreated. _Not yet._ So spoiled, he had gone for dessert before dinner. So ahead of himself, he hadn't yet indulged in what he so desired.

Tenderly, he skimmed his fingertips along the flesh of her arms, travelling to her dainty hands, which he took in his own. Abruptly, he drew her in to where their bodies were flush. Once so cold, his body had been enkindled, core galvanized, so that their respective heats fed off one another and set the world aflame. One of his burning hands guided hers to his shoulder, where that delicate composition of bones and muscles and that skin he craved so took up residence. That very hand of his, placated by her concession, found the gentle dip in her waist and fixed itself to the silken fabric. And with his other, he laced his fingers in the crevices between hers.

Those delicious images spawned from a history long forgotten and the dreams of a winsome woman were conjured by his thoughts as he began to sway ever so slightly. When he had leeched all the remnants of the past, all of the wonders and the hopes from her pretty little head to be locked away in crystal, one had not slipped by unnoticed. In a kingdom belonging to demise, he had seen her twirl gracefully amongst the pampered elite in a dress of celestial silk, fulfilling the destiny heralded by her name. More so than anything, Prince Demando had thirsted to recreate that scene in his own demented way. More so than anything, he wanted to dance with her as he had seen her dance with another in her dreams.

And in that empty ballroom, ineffably alone save for the accompaniment of the sullen air and the dim light, he began to dance her to his haunting melody.

She began stiff and unsure, body weary of his control, and for good reason. He could spend an eternity slaughtering her memories, but he could never exhume the innate fear and apprehension of him that had buried itself in her heart. But what he could do was soften it, dilute it, hide it.

_"Relax, Serenity."_ He whispered in her ear.

The familiarity of her name on his tongue dissolved the tension possessing her body. Compliant, her delicate frame relaxed, allowing him to lead her in their first turn. Against the floor, her soft, high-heeled footfalls were the pitter-patter of rain he had all but forgotten about. Briefly, it stirred the child within him who yearned for the spring rains above all else, but he suppressed that thought. That puerile dream, along with many others, was as good as dead. Earth was a wasteland that he needed not. After all, its ruler belonged to him, and with her he would force the sky to weep on Nemesis and for nature to turn benevolent.

He possessed enough power to force a goddess to descend from heaven, to make the god of a world undeniably his. Against that, the notion of conquering nature was nothing.

As if aware of his plans, the dead planet Nemesis stirred with a thunderous grumble. The unwavering clouds in the sky rattled against one another as the dark entity seethed at its proposed conquer. But Demando, wholly unfazed, released hold of her waist and loosened his grasp on her hand, twirling her. The innumerable ghostly layers of her snowy dress swirled around her, caressing her thighs as she spun on the balls of her right foot, unfettered, for a moment before he reclaimed her once more.

She was noticeably more at ease, for her brief date with freedom had quieted that within her which warned her of the White Prince's affinity for imprisonment. The lingering conceptions of his unmatched cruelty were certainly untrue; he let her go, he liberated her from the sumptuous mundanity of the world if only for a moment. But that romanticization of actions was so misleading. The fallen goddess was wholly unaware of his true intentions: those so malevolent, those so horrendous, those so lurid.

His appearances were equally as deceiving. White adorned the strands of his hair, the smoothness of his skin, the silk of his elaborate suit, while violet bled into his irises and wove itself around the embroidered vines on his jacket and the threads of his sweeping cape. The blend of the two colors was so harmonious and innocuous. The Prince was winter personified.

But she was unacquainted with the cruel undertones of the season.

Just as the cold ravaged the world unchecked, consumed the vibrancy of the warm leaves with frost, and sucked the life from the land with rapacious fangs, he too was just as destructive of a force. His wintry beauty and his gentle guile were his snow; they hid his capacity for cruelty.

And oh how beguiling of a man the White Prince was. Again, he released her from his hold and let her experience that temporal freedom granted by the twirl. Again, he reclaimed her hand and found that intoxicating dip in her waist. Again, he held her body to his own as he guided her in his traversing of the ballroom. All the while, Demando anchored her to the world with his eyes that brimmed with affection, with lust, with _hatred_. Desire her he did, but never would he shake the ghosts of the heinous crimes her future incarnation had committed against the world, _against him. _

Demando wanted to love her just as much as he wanted to torture her.

If only she knew...but then again, how could she have? The poor young woman was vacant in mind with only brain matter and phantasms of times before to occupy the space of her head. She had yet to understand that the world was cruel and that those closest to her craved her downfall. The mere idea of anyone desiring her suffering was inconceivable.

So when he dipped her back, an arm curled around her waist to keep her from falling prey to gravity, she could never guess that the White Prince toyed with the idea of letting her tumble to the ground in a storm of glimmering gold and shimmering silver.

Hovering dangerously above the untarnished floors of the ballroom, smoke and shadow swimming beneath her, she blinked at him with her naive, lapis lazuli orbs as the hand resting on his shoulder slid to the back of his neck, finding the knot of bone centered between his broad shoulders. Fine locks of hair tickled her fingers. Warm breath washed over her cheeks. Violet eyes stared at her if she was the only thing in the world.

With the spectres of shadow as witness, she unwound her fingers from the web of his, brought both hands to the sides of his neck, tentatively dusting her lips against his own. Her kiss was chaste, entirely of innocent affection, but once provoked the predatory nature of Demando was ruthless. His free hand seized hold of her head and forced her lips to his when she quickly pulled away. The arm around her waist tightened its hold, reeling her back in to where her chest was flush to his. Beneath the skin and the muscle and the bone, her heart raged against the confines of its cage. Myocardium flirted with osseum in short bursts to compose the melody of her wild heartbeats. And as the minutes dragged on and his kiss pulsed against her lips, the organ began to fall into rhythm with his.

But it ended as quickly as it began.

Respective hands found their ways back to a shoulder and a waist and a complement. As if they had never stopped, the pair resumed their dance.

Gliding on the crystalline waters of the ballroom, she was a swan with gossamer feathers that fluttered around her as they spun and stepped and swayed in unison, eyes never leaving one another's gaze.

Only momentarily did Demando's eyes wander, and it was to her milky forehead that was branded with the sigil of her birthright. But in the diluted gray of defiled Nemesian night, the gold was muted so that it only stood out for being a breath darker than the surrounding skin. He knew that the light had the same effect on his own crescent, and oh did he love how for once they were of one entity: the moon. There was no dark, just as there was no light. Only gray, only ambiguity.

The idea of a mutual ground for them, some purgatory of their morals was tantalizing. There he could be free of his guilt and of his reservations to break her, and to mend her, and to love her. There he would be as pure in heart as she, while she would succumb to corruption just as he once had. And perhaps that was what the Nemesian ballroom was: common ground in which their morals might meld to one another, forming some indistinguishable clot of villainy and heroism.

Blood reminded him of just which side he was partial to as he swept her through a corner of the ballroom and wine lapped at the silken hem of her dress. The ivory fabric received the crimson into the embrace of its thread as red wound itself around white.

At the end of the night, he reminded himself so bitterly, the blood would be her own. Soon the time would come when the goddess, the one he had supplicated, would break so beautifully in his hands, grant his relentless tension release, and love him as blindly as he did her.

But all he wanted to do in that moment was keep dancing with her, keep watching her twirl, and dip her again to earn her kiss though he owed it to his world and to himself to crush her. It didn't mean, however, that he wouldn't soothe her pain afterwards and mend her as best he could. Once he had let his hatred reign unchecked, he could be free to love her in his wicked way forever.

A step forward, a step back. A step to the side, another step to the side. Their movements were in perfect harmony, synchronized to a rhythm that they not only felt but created. Never once had their shared heartbeat wavered in its cadence. Never once had their dance stalled.

Cloaked in ivory and sable, the two monarchs swayed to that internal melody as one. Their bodies fit together so perfectly, their movements were so flawless and matched. And knowing that she could be such a large part of him made it so hard to hurt her, but so necessary anyways.

How nefarious he was when their dance finally lulled after what seemed like hours. In that momentary lapse of cadence, he saw opportunity to realize his malice. But masterfully he smoothed his impending cruelty beneath his suavity and lifted her off the ground, letting her soar one last time amongst the stars before he destroyed her. For that one moment, she was the moonlight in a darkened sky as she was returned to her pedestal in Olympus only to be torn away the next. And oh was he cruel even in his indulgence of her desires; his last gift to her was no more than a tease in reality.

Reluctantly, he dropped her, though his lust for torment flared in his chest at the sound of her startled cry. In glimmering gold and shimmering silver, she fell into the sea of smoke and shadow.

_Now...  
_

He chased her down, caging her frail body in with his limbs. The violet veil of his cape draped itself on his body and dripped onto hers. Frightfully she looked up at him, her partner suddenly so foreign.

That was when the true nature of the ballroom and the true nature of the White Prince began to manifest. The fleeting Nemesian ballroom began to transmogrify into those things wicked and cruel. Gaping windows became contorted mouths petrified in anguish. Balmy air became charnel wind. Roman columns sprouted from the ground as the fingers of Atlas who in agony held up the sky and all of its twinkling stars. Shadows beneath her began to bite into her skin. And worst of all, above her, Demando's face took on a dark edge as shadows contoured his maleficence and molded his malice.

She could not stifle the fearful whimpers that escaped her throat, nor could she hide the fright that spilled from her eyes. So naive and so apprehensive, she stared at him with her ocean-blue orbs to ask of his next move, though her mind had begun to adapt to darkness and to _know. _

It was that very look that stalled him as he dove to take that heart into his hands and feel it beat against his palm.

What did she know besides that he had left undisturbed in her mind? Absolutely nothing. And if that was so, if she had no memory of the crimes she had committed, if she in her present form _hadn't _committed them, then who was he to punish her? There was no vengeance in that, only unjust resentment.

Still, there existed a part of him that craved her suffering, but he silenced it as he brushed the tears away with his thumbs and brushed tender kisses on her lips. He could hurt her later. For now, he would love her in the most beautiful ways.

And love her he did.

Nemesis slept soundly as the stars drifted in a sea of sable and the White Prince acquainted his Princess with intimacy. Outside, the world was indubitably black. Inside, it was hundreds of colors: white, violet, gold, blue, red...

But above all, it was gray.

**End**

I purposely tried to remain super ambiguous with Usagi's current identity and context of the situation, so big apologies if it's a little confusing. As with Ivory, it teeters on the abstract side since I absolutely love writing pieces that are a little out there. I'd love to hear what everyone thought, so please don't hesitate to drop a little review. Thanks for reading and Happy Easter!


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